Steve Jobs’ Death Inspires Reflections on the Past… and Future: News of the untimely death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs flew around the world Wednesday evening, from Facebook page to Twitter feed, as millions expressed gratitude and admiration for the way his vision and innovation impacted their lives. At the same time, industry pundits, who have had years to ponder an Apple without Jobs at the helm, began a fresh round of speculation about how the tech giant will evolve under a new generation of leadership. The stock market, which had six weeks to absorb the news of Jobs’ departure as CEO, reacted calmly. Dice

iPhone Upgrade Is Mostly Internal: Tuesday’s announcement of the Apple iPhone 4S may have disappointed iPhone fans who were hoping for a more radical iPhone 5 redesign, but there is still plenty of innovation in the upgraded phone, mainly on the
inside. The new A5 processor is far more powerful than its predecessor (it’s also used in the iPad), and the camera is vastly improved. The biggest software game changer may be the inclusion of Siri, a voice-driven personal assistant that can handle many routine queries and tasks via voice command. Given that smartphones powered by Android now outsell iPhones by more than two to one, Apple needs to continue to create new excitement around the iPhone. The additional announcement of iCloud, which will let users enjoy their content without periodic syncing to a computer, also won praise. Dice

2010’s Lost Tech Jobs Reappear in 2011: TechAmerica Foundation’s new Cyberstates report tallied up total tech employment and found that the U.S. high-tech industry lost 115,800 net jobs in 2010, leaving a total of 5.75 million workers. That 2 percent decline was less than half of the 249,500 jobs lost in 2009. However, a TechAmerica midyear jobs report, based on a different monthly data set from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, found that from January to June 2011, the industry added a net 115,000 jobs, a 2 percent gain, not seasonally adjusted. “We have fared better than the private sector as a whole over the course of the economic downturn and there are some positive signs for 2011,” said Phillip J. Bond, TechAmerica’s president and CEO. TechAmerica Foundation

No One Wants to Be a Tech CEO Anymore: Recent tumult in Silicon Valley board rooms like HP’s and Yahoo’s suggests that the attraction of helming a big tech company is waning. Today, tech hotshots would rather enter the world of venture capital or create their own startups rather than deal with entrenched corporate interests that move slowly and stall innovation. As the job of leading large tech companies gets tougher, there are fewer talented leaders with the skills and motivation to do it. The San Francisco Chronicle

Will Anonymous Kill The New York Stock Exchange Next Week? The most dramatic rumor of the week involves the hacktivist collective Anonymous , which says it plans to “erase” the NYSE on Oct. 10. Or maybe not. No sooner did the word get out than Anonymous said the announcement was a fake planted by law enforcement, and that if the real group was going to take action like that, it certainly wouldn’t do it on a holiday (Monday is Columbus Day). The problem, is that no one knows who Anonymous is, and there may be several involved who aren’t all on the same page. The intrigue continues. PCMag.com

Dell Says HP Should Stay in PC Business: In a speech at Oracle OpenWorld on Tuesday, Dell CEO Michael Dell told the crowd that he still likes the low-margin PC business and that others — he didn’t mention HP by name — should stick it out as well. “There are many reasons to stay committed,” he said, noting that 5 percent of the world’s microprocessors go into servers and storage, while 95 percent go into PCs. Bits Blog

Oracle and Salesforce Have a Bit of a Slapfest: IT watchers don’t normally pay attention to petty cat fights, but when Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was suddenly dumped from the speaker’s list at Oracle OpenWorld, a feud between him and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison came to light, and it could have ramifications for the relationship between the two tech giants and their customers. Benioff, once an Oracle executive himself, has been critical of his former employer’s strategies for a year, and apparently Ellison is getting sick of it. TechCrunch

Rhapsody Buys Napster: Rhapsody and Napster, two names from the inception of digital music, are joining forces. Rhapsody acquired Napster and its user base to
compete more effectively against upstart rival Spotify. The goal is to add many more subscribers to its all-you-can-eat music subscription service. Today Rhapsody has only 800,000 paying subscribers, while Spotify has 2 million among a total audience of 10 million. PC World

Upcoming Tech Events

CTIA Enterprise & Applications
October 10-13—San Diego
CTIA’s fall show reflects the evolution of the industry and growing use of mobile technology in business.

Mobile Augmented Reality
October 11—San Diego
This full-day event, part of the CTIA Enterprise & Applications show, will cover opportunities for developers, brands, agencies, and the enterprise in the mobile augmented reality space.

GreenBiz Innovation Forum
October 11-13—San Francisco
Join leaders in sustainability to learn what sustainable innovation means—including
technology, product, service, and business model innovation and how it is becoming
core to business strategy; how leading companies manage for innovation, employing breakthrough techniques such as gamification, open innovation, and applied social media in employee engagement; and which success factors are key for making your company a leader in sustainable innovation.

The Pivot Conference
October 17-18—New York
Pivot is the only conference focused on how major brands, agencies, marketers and content creators can succeed by understanding, accessing and influencing the emerging social consumer.

Web 2.0 Summit
October 17-19—San Francisco
The Web 2.0 Summit brings together over 1,000 executives from the worlds of technology, media, finance, telecommunications, entertainment and the Internet. For 2011, the theme is “The Data Frame”—focusing on the impact of data in today’s networked economy.

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No Responses to “Farewell to Steve Jobs; 2010’s Lost Tech Jobs Reappear (Roundup)”

Tech jobs didn’t really return. Positions have been offering 30-40% less and often without benefits anymore. More jobs are mergers of several positions (developer, tester, DBA) with pay based on the lowest paying one. New titles are created (System Architect) which have the duties of management (Project Manager) but less money because there is no “manager” in the title anymore. Contract positions are shorter than ever but the clients then complain that you’ve only worked on short contracts of the duration they are offering.